


maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: AU of the events that happened with Tara and Vincent, F/M, mentions of implied domestic violence, not in graphic detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Bad Things Happen Bingo: Anger born of Worry.Chimney knew this would happen the moment she had told him what was going on with Tara and her husband. He'd known that Maddie would be in the line of danger when the time came and he doesn't know how to keep her and their unborn child safe.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937749
Comments: 7
Kudos: 7





	maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live

Chimney could have predicted something like this would happen the moment Maddie got involved. It was the main reason he was so worried the very time she brought it up to him because he knew his girlfriend had a big heart and a tendency to get emotionally involved and invested. And this was dangerous, it was dangerous for her friend and it was starting to get dangerous for Maddie.

It’s hard. He can’t tell her to stop being friends with Tara, even if he wants to, because Maddie sees herself in the other woman and she’s just not ready or willing to give up on her. And whilst Maddie sees herself in Tara, she also sees Doug in Vincent. They’d met at the gym that she had just joined with Josh and whilst she can’t explain it to him, the moment she had seen the ‘happy’ couple together, she had known. He supposes it’s the same way he can pick up on when someone has lost a parent when they were young, he just knows that look in their eyes. There’s some shared experience that sometimes, simply cannot be hidden from someone who just… knows.

Maddie knows better than anyone (and he wishes she didn’t), that she couldn’t convince Tara to leave no matter what. It was a decision that had to be made by her and it was the biggest, most terrifying decision she would ever make. The same one Maddie had once, the decision that had caused her to flee an entire state and drive thousands of miles, looking over her shoulder every single step of the way. The kind of decision that had left her telling herself she would have to spend the rest of her life running to avoid ever being found by the man who most certainly would have killed her. Who almost did.

Chimney knows it isn’t easy but he also can’t rid himself of the fear that rushes through him every single time Maddie looks at her phone and gets _that_ look on her face. He can’t deny the way his heart rate picks up every single time she mentions her friend’s name, or how he wants to shake her when she’s sobbing into his arms because involving herself in Tara’s world is all too real and all too traumatic for her.

His head snaps up the second she walks through the door, “You said you’d be home an hour ago.” Even he hates how that sounds out loud but when she had rushed out of the door a few hours before, she had promised him she would be home before midnight and it was past that and he’d been pacing the apartment for hours because he’d known exactly where she was going when she had barely uttered a goodbye to him before she left.

“I-I know, I know… I just—shit. He hurt her badly, she was—I drove her to a shelter… it’s best you don’t know where but… uh, she’s out.”

He wonders if he’s meant to feel relief at that but everyone knows that the most dangerous time is when the victim leaves their abuser. But now his girlfriend is involved, his _pregnant_ girlfriend and maybe it’s selfish to want her to be safe because her being safe means Tara won’t have her as a friend but there’s other ways. There are people who can help her without having to be thrown back to a time when their life was the same. There are people who can help her who are paid or equipped to deal with the danger that comes with this because Vincent knows that Maddie is Tara’s friend and he knows that Maddie knows exactly what he is, so the first place he’s going to come is straight to the woman he loves and he can’t be around all the time to protect her and their unborn child.

“He’s going to find out.”

It’s when she shrugs her shoulders as though it isn’t a big deal that the worry intensifies into something closer to anger, the kind of rage he doesn’t usually feel building up inside of him. But he’s terrified for the storm he knows is about to hit Maddie. The entire friendship over the last few months had caused him countless sleepless nights and panicked scenarios he’d run through with his therapist and then with Hen when he thought of al the worst things that could possibly happen. And now it was coming true, Maddie had helped Tara get out, but at what cost to herself?

“He’s going to come straight to you, you know that!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, hearing it echoing off the walls of his apartment as he slams his hands down on the kitchen counter, staring at her. It’s panic that is pulsating through him, the kind that forces his entire body to shake when he steps around the kitchen island and walks towards her. Chimney knows her well enough to know that despite how she’s acting on the outside, she’s terrified, too. They have another life to think about and whilst he or she didn’t exist when she had started this friendship in the first place, they do now and they have other things to think about.

“I couldn’t just turn my back on her.”

Chimney wants to shake her, he wants to scream, he wants to slam doors and throw something against the wall because it’s all too much. He’s terrified, he can’t remember a time when he’s been so scared before… not since… sitting in a hospital bed, helpless and not knowing whether Maddie would live or die when she was in Big Bear with Doug. This is akin to that but with the impending sense of doom because he doesn’t know when the hurricane is going to hit, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen and most of all, he doesn’t know what to do or how to help.

“It’s not your place to help her. This wasn’t—you could have gotten Athena, you could have…” He wants to give her other options but it’s too late, the deed has been done and there’s nothing he can do to change it now. But it doesn’t stop the worries or the scenarios he’s building up of Vincent coming to knock on their door and Maddie being home alone at the time. Of Maddie refusing to answer his questions or him not liking her answers. What if he hurt her? What if he didn’t believe her when she told him she didn’t know where his wife was? Or what if… Tara went back to him and told him exactly who helped her escape? “You shouldn’t have gotten involved, not on your own.”

There’s tears in her eyes and he watches as her bottom lip trembles and he wonders if she regrets anything she’s done. It’s Maddie though, all she’s ever wanted to do is help people, whether it’s at her own detriment or not, “I’m sorry. I just—I wasn’t thinking beyond getting her out of there and somewhere safe. I had someone to run to and she doesn’t, okay? So, I took her somewhere where they would look after her and… I wasn’t thinking about me or anyone else.”

“Well, it’s not just you anymore, is it? It’s you and the baby and us and _our_ family. You can’t just do things without telling me!” The look on her face lets him know that what he’s saying is getting through to her just a little, from her wide, tear filled eyes and her pale face before her hand drops to her still flat stomach and she nods her head.

“I’m scared…”

It’s with a sigh that he nods his head, still angry but pulls her close to him so he can hold her and feel her breathing against his chest as he wraps both arms tightly around her and buries his face in her hair. “Me too, Maddie… me too.”


End file.
